Thomas Mahler, lead developer on the Ori series and the upcoming game No Rest for the Wicked, has introduced a new website called VideoGamesCritic. This platform is presented as an alternative to existing aggregation sites like Metacritic and OpenCritic, with a stated aim to rectify what Mahler perceives as a fundamental flaw: the unreliability of professional game critics. The site heavily favors player scores, allotting them two-thirds of the total weighting, while deeming professional reviews less trustworthy.
VideoGamesCritic aggregates critic scores from OpenCritic and combines them with player scores derived from Steam reviews. A unique "trust-weighted" mathematical process is applied to these Steam reviews, giving them significantly more influence than critic scores. The website also seeks to quantify the accuracy of individual gaming publications by comparing their review scores against the aggregated player consensus, identifying how much their scores deviate from those of the wider player base. This functionality extends to outlets that do not typically assign numerical scores to their reviews, such as Kotaku.
This initiative follows Mahler's previous concerns about the impact of Steam reviews. Last year, he suggested that review bombing could endanger his studio, Moon, despite No Rest for the Wicked not experiencing such an event and receiving only mild criticism for an update to its early access version. Mahler had then used press coverage of his review bombing claims as evidence of press failings, comments that also included transphobic remarks. The launch of VideoGamesCritic, which places substantial trust in Steam reviewers, appears to stem from a continued belief that the press is less reliable than players.
Mahler articulated his rationale on X, stating, "My main problem with the existing aggregators: Their scores tell you how the press felt about a game, not how players did." He explained that VideoGamesCritic addresses this by giving players two-thirds of the weighting, ensuring that "Press still counts, it just can’t outvote the people who bought the game."
A more coherent motivation for the project, according to the notes, is Mahler's desire for an aggregation site that accounts for game updates and improvements over time. He pointed to games like No Man's Sky, whose Metascore remains tied to its troubled launch rather than its current state years later. VideoGamesCritic attempts to reflect game evolution by giving more weight to recent Steam reviews.
Steam reviews offer a binary choice: recommend or not recommend. While susceptible to manipulation, Mahler's system attempts to mitigate this. Reviews from players with fewer than two hours of playtime are heavily downweighted, with credibility increasing up to ten hours of playtime. The site also utilizes Steam's review-bomb detection features and assigns lower weight to reviews from players who activated games via Steam keys.
Mahler asserts that the site's mathematical basis makes it transparent and unbiased. The methodology for assigning scores to outlets that do not provide numerical reviews, like Kotaku, involves analyzing their verdict calls for accuracy against player satisfaction, their alignment with player recommendations, and their stance in cases of disagreement between press and players. These factors are weighted, with recent verdicts carrying more influence.
The article suggests that VideoGamesCritic's approach is fundamentally flawed, arguing that the purpose of criticism extends beyond simply predicting public reaction, encompassing deeper analysis and personal reflection. Assigning numerical values to non-scoring outlets based on player agreement is presented as a simplistic interpretation of critical discourse. The author concludes that the site is superfluous, as players can already consult Steam reviews or existing user scores on other aggregators if they prioritize player opinion over critical analysis.